Sacrilege
by Jenn Gutiérrez
Speak to me as though in secrecy,
like wind as it stirs only the branches
of those aspens I peer at directly.
Or like rain—
the kind that pelts scent upwards
but just in those synergetic moments
when the heat of red clay
rises to greet it.
Those rarities
in the everyday
urging us to take knee
and free ourselves of four-walled structures.
Here is my church,
my garden of the gods,
and fulfilled—that haunted compromise
between civility and the frightfully untamed.
Here is where four-legged, antler-headed, find peace,
hidden among rimmon-scales of rock,
and where one willing might be lulled
with echoes etched by Anasazi
standing barren, unprotected against
an open stone façade—
I am a fugitive of forced benches and padded kneelers.
Here, at this origin of songs inspired,
where blood once emptied,
was later cleansed by tears of those
newly anointed and unaccustomed
to such painful beauty.
Live among the holy testament
of a Majestic defined,
needing no guidebook,
no glances over the shoulder. It speaks.
Whispering lines,
it threads itself
between the
ribcaged canals
of this unrestrained member
of its congregation.